Just Desert
by Indigogold
Summary: Set during Desert. Mindy and Danny get lost in the desert, with no gas and no cell. With only the charming Danny Costellano and a bottle of vodka for company, Mindy might be about to find a lot more than just her way home. Planning on a multi-chapter fic with lots of romance, humor and adventure.


**Hey, this is my first fanfiction for The Mindy Project. I've recently become very obsessed with it and Danny/Mindy, I ship them so hard. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Emma and I'm almost eighteen. Happy reading!**

Her car was running out of gas, she realised. Damn! Why hadn't she stopped at the gas station? Why? Because she had been so intent on finding Danny himself, every second she spent not looking for him was another second he could spend wandering farther into the desert. He was emotional and he was drunk. Mindy silently screamed in frustration and gripped the steering wheel tightly; she put her foot down and continued west. It was about half an hour later that the car conked out. Even though it was freezing and dark, she persevered in her search for him on foot.

She could have easily driven to the airport without a care in the world, her mind was purposely veering away from the image of Danny and she forced in the image of Cliff - waiting for her with open arms back in New York. She was almost successful with this tact until her phone rang. She didn't stand a chance then; she turned the car around and accelerated twice as fast in the other direction. It seemed that it was easy decision for her, going to Danny instead of Cliff. It felt right.

_I'm helping a friend,_ she chided herself. She couldn't bear the image of him all alone and sad, hopelessly sad. It made her ache with longing. She was turning to ice; despite this her feet kept moving forwards to him. The wind whipped roughly against her face, causing the sand to swirl up from the golden depths of the ground below and slap against her legs. She moved onwards, pushing herself, she wanted to call him but her cell battery was running out too. What was she going to do? Despite her numb, frozen hands – her head felt hot with fear, her mind was racing at a thousand miles an hour.

It was then she saw a lone figure hunched up near a cactus with abandoned bottles surrounding it. She inched closer slowly, her legs like ice but her heart was on fire.

"Danny?" She wondered tentatively.

"M-Mindy?" He said, his voice sounded broken, weary. "About time." He shivered. He didn't mean to seem so ungrateful; it's just that he felt hurt that she left him. She left him to go to Cliff and that hurt him really badly, he just wasn't sure quite yet why. He tried to stumble up to greet her but his head was spinning.

"I'm sorry, Danny. But I drove all the way back here just to rescue your sorry ass, the least you can do is be grateful." As she inched closer to him, she could see him swaying. "Jeez, Castellano, how much did you drink?"

"I'm not.. I'm not sure Mindy. The room is spinning." He pulled her down next to him, his long, cool fingers twining around her waist and setting her down on the sand.

"Uh, dude. We're not in a room, we're in the desert. You want to hear some bad news? No? Well you're going to. The car is out of gas and my cell is dead. I can't remember the way back." She turned to him, only parts of his strong, masculine face visible in the darkness. His deep brown eyes stared unfalteringly into hers; it took him a second to register what she was saying.

"Shit! It's freezing out. What are we going to do?" He asked, like she knew all the answers, just because she was the one smart enough to stay sober for once.

"Do you have your cell?" She didn't know why she was asking him, he called her off it only a few hours ago.

"Uh… Yeah." He paused drunkenly, his hand sliding into his jeans and patting around furiously. He felt the floor around him and looked back to her guiltily. "Uh… no."

"What? You better be joking! We can't stay out here all night." She was getting colder by the second, her bones started to shake uncontrollably, like every cell in her body was gradually succumbing to an ice age. She clenched her teeth.

"Uh. Um. I don't mind." He was still swaying.

"What do you mean, you don't mind?" She hissed.

"Staying out here. Sure it's cold, but it's quiet and the stars look nice. Hey, do you want some vodka?" He produced a large bottle from God knows where, it was half empty.

Mindy looked at him incredulously, then back to the bottle and then back to him. "You know what? What the hell. Yeah, okay, sure." Seriously, what did she have to lose? She had missed yet another flight, Cliff had probably given up by now anyway. She found it odd that she didn't feel that sad about it. She took the bottle from him and held the glass at an arm's length and rocked it gently back and forth so the intoxicating liquid sloshed against the sides. With a mischievous twinkle in her mahogany eyes, she unscrewed the cap and took a long, slow glug. Like a forest fire it ignited her throat and then warmed her from the inside out. She didn't feel so cold anymore. Mindy knew she wasn't acting very much like a grown up, but for now, she didn't care.

Two hours later, they both lay side by side, hands clasped to their chests and gazing up at the sky (completely sozzled, of course) with a childlike wonder. Mindy had never seen anything so beautiful, stars stretched out endlessly across the night sky, dotted about so perfectly it made her think that someone had put them there and arranged them in that order, just for her to stare at. The dusty clouds had dispersed and a shining full moon remained, illuminating Danny and Mindy's faces.

"Hey Min?" Danny turned his face towards hers.

"Yeah?" She dragged out the last part of the word, the way only a drunk person can.

"Do you ever wonder what else is up there?" He asked her matter-of-factly.

"What do – what – do – you mean? Like… Aliens?"

"Maybe. There has to be something out there. It can't be just us. Do you ever think about it?" Mindy turned her head to the side so that she could look at him, with glassy eyes she could make out his cute, earnest expression.

"You're so cute when you're drunk, Dan-ny, do you know that?" She smiled from ear to ear, her chest exploding with warmth. "I think about it... sometimes. Imagine if there was like this super awesome planet where there were just hot guys and as the first hot Indian astronaut – I would get the first pick." She turned her whole body around so that she was lying in the sand on her side, her head resting lightly on her palm. Danny mirrored her.

His expressive eyes sparkled humorously; they held something else which she couldn't quite place. "What – what…if there was a planet full of Dannys? Millions and millions of handsome Italian men."

"Oh shut up you ego… egotistical jackass." She was grinning as she said it. The cold was starting to hit her again.

"You want my jacket?" He said, already pulling at his sleeves.

"Jeez, how wasted are you man? I already have a jacket on! Th – thanks though." She momentarily placed her hand over his and his heart shot right up to the sky without a hope of a safe return.

"Why don't, uh, we go back to the car?" Drunken Danny suggested eagerly. "It will, um, be much warmer in there."

"Stupid Mindy! Why didn't I think of that? C'mon, man, you're gonna need to support this hot Indian body, cause this girl is very drunk." She pushed herself up to her knees, but to her surprise, fell back down to the ground again, "whoops!" She laughed, Danny joined in. He offered her his hand after he had finished making fun of her, and together they eventually got to their feet.

"Which way is the car?" He asked, his eyes searching through the darkness.

Mindy's drunken mind sorted through her scattered thoughts and tried to access her memory, luckily, she spotted a cactus she recognised walking past a few hours earlier. "This way!"

Leaning on each other, they gradually found their way to the car. Mindy fell against the bonnet and laughed again, Danny moved towards her; and grabbed her ice cold hands and pulled her up so that they were hip to hip. His eyes gazed longingly into hers, her storytelling eyes glistened as she parted her lips, and the chilly night air was suddenly electrified by them, starting a hazardous storm that radiated between them. He could feel her breath on his cheek and his heart literally surged with energy, volts and wires wrapping around it and jump starting it. He felt alive.

"Keys." Mindy suddenly exclaimed. "I got the keys." She fumbled in her pocked at the jingle rang out into the darkness.

"Keys." Danny's Adam's apple bobbed up and down nervously. "Right."

They both climbed into the back of the car, slamming the doors shut behind them.

"It's freezing in here, too." Danny said. "How are we both supposed to sleep back here?"

"Body heat. We need to uh, huddle together to keep warm. Like they do in the movies." She added cautiously.

They fidgeted about for a few seconds. Danny lay across the seats, and stretched out as much as possible. Mindy hovered tipsily above him, not sure where to go. "Lie on top of me, Min." He said softly, sounding more sober.

"What? Dude. I'd crush you to death." She said quietly.

"Are you kidding? I'm all muscle." His cocky smile usually irritated her but she found it endearing.

"Sure?" She asked one more time.

"Yes!" He held his arms open. Being drunk, this seemed like a very good idea. It didn't cross his mind that they could have sat in the front and reclined the seats. Danny scooted up a little so that she wasn't completely on top of him – she lowered herself downwards so that half of her body was resting against the seats and the other half was on him.

"Am I heavy?" She curiously said.

"Nope." After all, his body was kind of numb from all the alcohol. Shocking her, he pulled his arms tightly around her and put one of his legs around hers. She pressed her head against his chest and felt warmth forming between the two of them.

"You're so beautiful, Min." His words slurred slightly, but she felt the feeling behind them. She didn't answer but held him tighter, her thoughts not turning to tomorrow but staying right there with Danny, every inch of her calm and serene. She smiled to herself, her heavy eyelids drooped closed and she fell instantly asleep.

**I'm planning a few chapters for this, it's going to get a little more adventurous and things will soon heat up between the two (desert pun not intended but I like it.) Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a review!**


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